Playlist for a Polarized America for Thanksgiving and Beyond

These 12 post-election months have been especially exhausting. Directly following 2016’s up-swell in divisiveness resulting in the presidency of Donald J. Trump, America fell into the arms of a Thanksgiving season. This year, once again we Americans gather with family and friends for Thanksgiving, joining in gratitude around the traditions surrounding food and football — often failing to appropriately acknowledge the ancestral lands and unceded territories on which our tables stand — while avoiding all politics in our table talk.

The avoidance strategy is often advocated for familial health during the holidays. We don’t want to offend or ruin the goodness the days could hold. No space should be made for divisive rhetoric and conversation. There’s no room for that, especially during the holidays.

Yet I believe 2017 Thanksgiving is different than 2016, with a more hopeful chance for bipartisanism. Americans are tired but a bit more open and empathic. It’s time to reach across the table. Whereas we might not be ready to talk boldly on politics with our friends and families, we have an opportunity to broach a few subjects for the common good while we are together in good spirits. And I suggest music — a playlist — to be the appropriate tool.

Social commentary has always been present in country music. It is American music that speaks to many things that has happened and happens on American soil.

In my posts for CFR, I usually aim to spur awareness and connection beyond American borders; this time I am reaching across the aisle, across the dial, across the family table. With this post I am offering to mine, and all politically polarized American families, this playlist for the holidays — available on Spotify. The songs on the playlist were each chosen because they unearth important discomforts in a comfortable manner, describe a bold vision we all should hear, or shift the narrative in a human way.

My family is based in mid-Michigan and votes both red and blue. This is what I plan to say to my own family before clicking the “play” button on the playlist:

Our family is growing together this year. I have some music to be the backdrop. Simply listen when you can and leave space for each of us to garnish both empathy and agency inspired by the music or the conversation that grows from it.

Sit in the innate love we have for one another. Remember that friends and family members may have faced bias and discrimination because they recently immigrated, are female, ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American), LGBTQIA, facing financial struggle, lost a job, never found a job, experiencing homelessness, or live with a physical or learning disabilities or mental illness. We hold all of us dear. We will listen.

Please note that while some of the lyric content of a few songs is leaning toward PG13 in maturity, all tracks included in the playlist are clean, radio-edit versions. Intentionally, the playlist is an odd mixed tape of country, pop, hip hop, rap, folk, House and more from artists who represent an array of perspectives. Enjoy the journey.

White Man’s World — Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
“There’s no such thing as someone else’s war
Your creature comforts aren’t the only things worth fighting for
You’re still breathing, it’s not too late
We’re all carrying one big burden, sharing one fate”

Change — Joy Denalane featuring Lupe Fiasco
“If we don’t do it for us, We gotta do it for our kids
So they don’t gotta re-live”

Only in America — Brooks & Dunn
“One kid dreams of fame and fortune
One kid helps pay the rent
One could end up going to prison
One just might be president” Songwriters: Randall Jay Rogers, Kix Brooks, Don Cook

The Fight — Taboo
“There’s so much joy, why don’t we feel it?
There’s so much pain, oh can we heal it?
The fight is never ours alone
We’re all in this together”Taboo is a musician, cancer survivor and Native American activist with Shoshone Tribe heritage. He’s also a member of the Black Eyed Peas.

What It Means — Drive-By Truckers
“But the core is something rotten
And we’re standing on the precipice
Of prejudice and fear
We trust science just as long
As it tells us what we want to hear”

I Would Like to Call It Beauty — Corrine Bailey Rae
“Oh I would like to call, call it beauty,
Strained as love’s become, it still amazes me” Songwriters: Rae Corinne Jacqueline Bailey, Philip Joseph Rae

Be — Common
“I look into my daughter’s eyes
And realize I’ma learn through her…
If I’ma do it, I gotta change the world through her…
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
The present is a gift, and I just wanna be”Written by Choker Campbell, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Kanye West, Kanye Omari West

Duerme — Josh Rouse
“Do not cry, baby
Your mom is in the field
She is going to bring a gift
I know it”Songwriters: Josh Rouse and Brad Jones

Girl In A Country Song — Maddie and Tae
“How in the world did it go so wrong?
Like all we’re good for
Is looking good for you and your friends on the weekend”

Shawn Lent moves this world as both a program manager and a social practice dance artist, with experience from a field in Bosnia to a children’s cancer hospital in revolutionary Egypt. She is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and UNAOC International Fellow, and has spoken at the University of Maryland, Universal Exposition Milan, TEDx Shibin El Kom, Sandbox Industries, and Commencement for Millikin University. From 2013-2015, Shawn served as the EducationUSA Egypt Coordinator for AMIDEAST and the U.S. Department of State. In 2013, her blog post "Am I a Dancer Who Gave Up?," went viral. Shawn holds a Masters in Arts Management from Columbia College Chicago and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Youth Arts Development from Goldsmith's College.